This article From Emotional Support Ladya newsletter by Alison Raskin.
If I’m constantly afraid that someone or something is contaminated, it often overrides my ability to be civil. When I first started dating my now husband, I was so busy asking him to move his shoulder bag away from the couch and asking him to wash his hands that I always put my best face forward. I couldn’t get it out. John knew that I suffered from pollution compulsive disorder, but found the implication that my belongings were clean and his belongings to be shabby to be quite harmful. And you know what? He was right.
My OCD is something I’m working on, but I also have to accept that, to some extent, that’s how my brain works. John is a wonderful, loving partner who understood early on that choosing a spouse for OCD required a high level of patience and some fairly significant behavioral changes (bye-bye shoes, sit around the house). Adhering to certain strict rules regarding location and time)). In the end, he decided the payoff was worth it. I happen to be a very soft-skinned and funny person. But that doesn’t discount or erase the level of annoyance my disability added to his life.
When I was younger, I considered my OCD, anxiety, and depression to be illnesses. Personal Burden. I hated that they were problems I had to deal with myself and didn’t have the ability to understand how they affected others. Or, perhaps more accurately, I found myself enraged when it affected others. How could someone be mad at me for something I can’t control? I I was the real victim who couldn’t escape from my own brain and others had enough of dealing with it on a regular basis. (Aside from my parents, they had to deal with it pretty much the same way I did.)
But what I understand now is that it’s possible to empathize, understand, and be kind about something, even if it’s upsetting at times. Just as it’s unfair for others to ask me to snap out of my obsessions and anxieties so easily, it’s also unfair that those behaviors can quickly lead to others without a second thought or exasperated sigh. It would be unfair of me to expect it to roll off someone’s back.
Living in a society means that we benefit from the community and help each other. But that also means some of my shit becomes your shit, and vice versa. This goes for everything from dating someone who’s a picky eater to planning vacations with someone who works 80 hours a week and has no access to her for more than an hour at a time.
In order to develop a relationship with another person (be it platonic, romantic, or familial), we end up performing a series of favors for each other. For example, does Grandma insist on having her Thanksgiving at her house? Even if other people live nearby, it would be better to load up her car and drive five hours. . But in that scenario, it wouldn’t seem inappropriate to make fun of grandma’s stubbornness while riding in her car. There will probably be some jokes and eye rolls as well.
But in today’s climate, at least in more progressive quarters, irritating behavior toward those resulting from mental illness can feel like a no-no. Your understandable frustration can feel like something is missing from your personality or evidence that you don’t have enough empathy for someone’s diagnosable struggles.
And doesn’t that make you a bad partner, parent, or friend?
perhaps. But probably not.
Emotions are something we cannot control. What we can control is our reaction to them. So, if you asked John to wipe the computer, even if he didn’t do it. feel You have to wipe it, it annoys him, well, that’s life, baby.
It will not work if:
1) He refused to wipe it, screaming that I was crazy.
2) He wiped it muttering that I was ruining his life.
3) He rubbed his “contaminated” computer all over my face. please teach me a lesson Germs don’t kill me.
Compared to this type of anger, being irritated for 60 seconds is nothing. It is not enough to shake the balance of our relationships.
I myself have gotten better at tolerating and expecting my loved ones to be unhappy with my various demands and rules. It might be great for me to get to the airport more than two hours early so I don’t have an anxiety attack that I might miss my flight, but my companion knows that he’ll probably be okay if he doesn’t. It will be a sacrifice for I have to kill a lot of time at the airport terminal. Sharing our lives and psyches with others is a give and take.
I don’t say this to provide a blank slate for people struggling with various mental health conditions. But I think it would be helpful to be more aware and appreciative of all those who change their own habits and instincts so that our worlds can blend more seamlessly. And I would like to give a little permission and perspective to those who feel that way. Can not It’s frustrating when your partner is actually suffering. Because you absolutely can. We do not experience life in isolation, and we all influence those around us with our mental state. It’s hard to stay upbeat when your spouse is depressed, and because your daughter didn’t meet her OCD standards, she wanted to clean the car seats five seconds after you wiped them again. It’s hard to stay completely calm when this happens. (Sorry, mom.)
As more people continue to struggle with their mental health, many more will wonder how to deal with their struggles and not get consumed by them. I think a good approach is to not hold it all in. Instead of acting like everything is perfectly fine, you vent your little frustrations, only to blow up later.
And for those of us with annoying behavior, whether we can control it or not, it would be of great help if we could own it instead of denying it.especially when I remember that everyone Whether it’s related to mental health; do not have.
